Nolte: A Million Fewer Migrants in Workforce May Point to Increased Self-Deportations

The far-left Wall Street Journal estimates that America’s immigrant population has declined by 773,000 since President Trump assumed office in January 2025. The far-left Washington Post puts the estimate of foreign-born workers leaving the workforce at around an even million.

As you would expect, both outlets lament that this is a bad thing, a sign of a “weakening labor market,” even as they are forced to admit that average “hourly wages accelerated, rising by 0.4 percent over the month, to $36.24 in May, as earnings continue to beat inflation in a boost to workers’ spending power.”

Breitbart’s John Binder reported that in “less than five months, President Donald Trump has reversed a trend that accelerated under former President Joe Biden — mainly that [under Biden] nearly all new jobs went to foreign-born workers who had recently arrived in the United States.”

Under Joe Biden, for every job gained by an American, 7.3 jobs went to migrants—legal and illegal.

So what accounts for that drop and this new dynamic?

Why, all of a sudden, would a million migrants flee the American workforce?

I see nothing that would encourage legal immigrants to flee. They are here legally.

So, it seems likely that many of those one million who fled are illegal immigrants, those who at long last have something to fear now that we have a president enforcing immigration law. Illegal immigrants have no business being in our country, and they sure as hell have no business stealing a job from an American or a legal immigrant.

If fear has driven a million illegal immigrants out of the workforce, that’s a beautiful thing. If you are in the country illegally, you should live in fear of being caught and deported. Fearing a workplace raid, some of those illegals might still be in the country but hiding out at home.

Others, and let’s hope it’s most or all of them, might be self-deporting to their home countries.

Trump is using both carrot and stick to motivate illegal aliens to self-deport.

The carrot is a real incentive. The infamous CBP app created by the Biden administration to funnel countless unvetted illegals into the American interior is now called CBP Home and encourages illegal aliens to self-deport. The app allows illegals to inform the government of their intent to leave the country. Illegals are also offered incentives to leave, including free airfare to their home country and $1,000 upon arrival.

The stick is even more persuasive.

First off, there is the ongoing fear of being deported. Then there are the workplace raids, which will motivate employers not to break the law by hiring illegals. Then there’s the cutting off of social services for illegals—housing and the like.

The less secure illegals feel in America and the harder it is for them to make a living and find a place to live, the more motivated they are to self-deport.

This is the way.

The average deportation costs around $17,000. Self-deportation costs the taxpayers a fraction of that.

The more pressure the government can apply and the more difficult we make it to live and work here illegally, the more self-deportations we can expect.

Regardless, there is no question that a million fewer migrants in the workforce benefits American workers and American wages. What the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post describe as a weak labor market is really a pro-worker market where a smaller pool of workers juices wages.

John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.